


Ruining Our Friendship

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:11:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: Steve decides he wants to kiss Danny. Just one kiss. That won’t ruin their friendship, right?





	Ruining Our Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I don’t know.... I saw a thing about kisses and friendship, and this silliness happened.

In all fairness, it wasn’t Steve’s idea to begin with. Danny was the one who started it. That seems important to point out before this goes any further.

They’d had a rough day, although that was partly because technically it was approaching two days, as they’d begun in the middle of the night and it was now well past dinner the next day. Not that Steve was counting the hours or anything. Being stuck here in this rat hole with his unbelievably frustrating and annoying and stupidly hot partner. Who hadn’t spoken to Steve in... oh, let’s see, almost three hours? Really. How do you not speak to someone for three hours, when you’re stuck in a tiny space with them and nothing else to do but watch what basically amounted to nothing at all interesting happening at all. Steve might have begun to have some ideas of how they could better pass the time, is what I’m saying. But he hadn’t been about to say them out loud. Just so we’re clear on that.

So when Danny finally did speak, after his three hour protest silence, the fact that he seemed to reach right inside and steal those thoughts, well. That was just coincidence. Yeah, had to be.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Steve tried to school his face into the absence of an expression, but considering he hadn’t been aware he’d shown anything, it was kind of difficult. “Like what?”

“Like _that_.”

“Seriously. How am I looking at you?” Steve couldn’t count the number of times they’d had this conversation.

“Like you want to kiss me.” Only that was a new one. Huh.

Well, he _was_ incredibly bored by this point. Not to mention tired, hungry, and possibly a little bit crabby. “Maybe I do.”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

He couldn’t _not_ be offended by that, though he probably shouldn’t be. This was Danny, after all. “How does wanting to kiss you make me a jerk, exactly?”

“Just stop.”

Pushing Danny at this point was probably unwise, given the length of time he’d gone without food. So Steve looked down, and muttered “Okay,” but he filed the thought away for another time.

It needled at him, though, that thought. Once it had been... planted. Although, that was probably unfair. He was pretty sure the thought had crossed his mind numerous times before. But now, it had reached needling velocity. If that’s even a thing. It was getting to him is the point. Like kind of a lot. On a regular basis. Several times a day.

And it was getting worse.

He tried recreating the look, to see if he could get Danny to say it again, to say “Don’t look at me like you want to kiss me.” He’d started daydreaming about hearing those words again. And dreaming about how he’d respond. _Not with words_ , obviously.

But maybe Danny had been delirious during the stakeout or something. Because no matter how Steve looked at him, he wouldn’t say it. He suggested plenty of less appealing possibilities, but never a kiss. So, Steve eventually had to take matters into his own hands.

He started asking for a kiss.

It’s possible that he could have planned his first attempt a little more thoughtfully. Maybe as they arrived at a crime scene wasn’t exactly the best idea. That one earned him a steely look that didn’t by any means quell his desire to be kissed by Danny. Next time he chose his moment with greater care. They were alone in the office, pouring over evidence. But that didn’t go so well either. So he tried on Friday on their way out for beers. No effect. By then he was getting kind of desperate. So he waited till after the beers and asked again.

“Just one?”

He supposed it was testament to how persistent he’d become, that Danny didn’t hesitate, didn’t need to ask what he was talking about, but went directly to his refusal: “No!”

“Really, just one kiss. I promise.” Steve was trying not to beg, but he was getting close.

Danny paused before he answered again, and Steve had a moment of hope. “No, you really don’t. And I said no. Like twenty times already.” But his refusal seemed... softer. Maybe. Just a little.

“One kiss isn’t going to ruin our friendship,” Steve was feeling buoyed by the hope.

Danny sighed. “That’s not what I’m afraid of, and yes it will, and the answer is still no.” And he walked towards the Camaro, leaving Steve standing next to his truck and feeling torn between thinking he was getting somewhere and beginning to feel resigned.

Steve had to mull it over for a bit. Ruin their friendship? He hadn’t even thought of that until he’d said it. What did it really mean, and would one kiss do that? Was _one_ kiss what he wanted? He wasn’t sure he knew the answer to any of those questions, but it didn’t seem to matter, because kissing Danny was pretty much all he could think about by that point.

He brought it up again, possibly not at the best time, while they were speeding down the streets of Waikiki, chasing some suspect who had done something or other. Like I said... kissing Danny had taken over a lot of his headspace.

“Maybe I _want_ to ruin our friendship. Maybe I want to wreck it and stand in the destruction and howl at the moon.”

“Seriously? Howl at the moon?” At least Danny wasn’t complaining that Steve was continuing the conversation... small victories.

“How is that the part you focus on?”

“It just seems a bit much.” Danny flinched as Steve drove a little too close to the sidewalk to avoid hitting another car.

“And the wreckage of our friendship doesn’t?”

Danny sighed as he had to grab onto the dash as Steve spun the car around a corner. “I think our friendship is built on wreckage, and you destroy it on a semi-regular basis as it is, so no, that part didn’t seem dramatic.”

“Well, in that case, one kiss shouldn’t matter,” Steve gritted out between clenched teeth as he slammed on the brakes.

“I should have seen that coming.” Steve could tell from his tone that Danny had rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, you really should have.”

The conversation couldn’t go any further just then though, because they’d caught up to the guy and suddenly there were shots being fired and chaos breaking loose and all that.

Which probably explains how the rest of the conversation eventually took place in a hospital room. Steve might have gotten a little bit shot. Maybe his reflexes weren’t all they could have been, when he was thinking so much about kissing Danny and a lot less about all the possible angles a bullet can hit you from rooftop shooters. Danny might have had a few choice words to say about that. Or, shout about that. But there was something about his face, when he was done yelling—and after Steve had assured the poor, terrified nurses that really, everything was actually okay. Something in his face was different. Just a little bit different. Maybe if Steve hadn’t been so medicated he might not have even noticed. But morphine did that you know, made things suddenly a lot more clear. Like everything else that you thought mattered... you saw how little they did. And the things that really _do_ matter.... Those things became so much more completely clear. Bright, shining, glowingly clear.

So maybe that’s why he was able to say it.

“Really though, nothing could ruin our friendship, you know.”

“What makes you say that?” Danny’s tone was soft, now he’d got his yelling out. Almost sounded amused.  

Maybe it was the morphine, maybe it was Danny’s voice, maybe it was something else. But Steve felt sweepingly emotional. “There’s nothing left that _could_ do it. We’ve been through it all, we’ve crumbled, we’ve come back... this is something bigger than anything else, and there’s just _nothing_... nothing that can break it.”

Danny was smiling. “You are a sap and a goof and....”

“And?” Steve felt like he was perched on the edge of some wonderfully tall cliff.

Danny rolled his eyes. He seemed to do that a lot lately. “And you’re probably, for once, actually correct.”

“Wow, that’s... ah.” He licked his lips. Saw Danny noticed that. “That’s a first.” He licked them again.

“Well. As long as we’re doing firsts.....” Danny couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Steve’s lips.

Steve couldn’t keep his own eyes off Danny’s. “Do not kid with me right now, Daniel.” Suddenly everything felt very, very serious.

“I don’t think I am.” Danny looked up and met Steve’s eyes. His expression was uncertain and yet somehow determined.

Holding Danny’s gaze, and knowing his voice was bordering on sounding threatening, but that was kind of how it felt: “ _Because it’s not just one_....”

“Yeah, that much has been kind of clear from the beginning, you dope.” Which was funny, that Danny had seen that, right away. Because Steve had felt unsure about that until just this moment... hadn’t he?

“I mean it,” Steve pushed the point, now that he saw it was true. “Once you give me one kiss, I’m going to want more. I’m going to want it all.”

“Yes, I do realize this.” It was occurring to Steve that Danny _had_ known that, long before Steve had begun to be aware of it. And he was beginning to understand that might have been why Danny had resisted as much as he had.

That thought was beginning to overwhelm Steve, but he managed to say: “I just want to make sure.”

Danny was getting agitated. “At this point I’ve had like ten years to process this. Are you going to kiss me or not?”

And that put Steve back on comfortable footing. Now everything was perfectly exactly right and how it should be, so his next move was utterly clear. “Are you always this impatient with the kissing?”

Danny tried not to smile. “Nope. Just with you.”

“That’s very sweet, Danny.”

“I know, now shut the fuck up and kiss me before I punch you.”

Steve reached out with his good arm, and tugged on Danny’s sleeve till he was close, then tugged one more time and Danny kind of fell against Steve’s hospital bed. The kiss was probably one of Steve’s more awkward first kisses, but the weight behind it was something else entirely, and before too long Danny was staggering up off the bed, running his hand through his hair, and muttering something about Steve not really needing to stay the night, after all he’d been shot a lot worse before.

“Eager to get me home, huh?”

“Might as well really ruin the friendship while we’re at it,” Danny threw over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

“That’s my boy,” Steve smiled to himself as Danny went to find a sympathetic nurse to convince or bribe to let Steve go home.

It took a while, and Steve slept for a bit while Danny worked some kind of hospital magic—which, Steve didn't like to admit, but he’d no doubt been the reason Danny had developed the skill in the first place. Eventually Steve was piled into the Camaro, and Danny was driving him home. Well below the speed limit, and staying clear of sidewalks and cars, even stopping for yellow lights.

It gave Steve some time to think, as his head cleared a little.

“So, if it wasn’t ruining our friendship you were worried about, what was it?”

Danny sighed and looked briefly over at him. “You’re already my longest relationship.” He scratched the back of his head. “My _best_ relationship, outside of family. That’s not really a friendship—it’s already so much more, so taking the next step doesn’t feel like it would ruin everything.... It’s more that it would _be_ everything.” He paused. “And that terrified me.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Nothing. I’m still terrified.” His gaze softened as he met Steve’s slightly worried look. “But I’m _more_ terrified to not try.”

They were stopped at a light, and it was probably about to turn green, but Steve really needed to kiss Danny after that confession. So he leaned carefully over his injured arm, and Danny moved toward him, and they kissed until the person behind them honked.

“Maybe drive a little faster?” Steve suggested.

Danny laughed, but evidently agreed, and soon they were falling (carefully) through the doorway at Steve’s place, stumbling (awkwardly) up the stairs, tumbling (on Steve’s good arm) into bed, and into the ruins, the desolation of their friendship.... But Steve knew they could take it. And he knew Danny was right—they would make it into something incredible.


End file.
